"I think it's a personal choice - when it gets to the point where you think it's affecting you adversely and it's affecting your relationships, it's time to make a change," McGraw said. "I thought it was [time]."

He further commented: "I also thought my girls are getting older and I certainly wanted to have some good, solid ground to stand on when I started talking to them about their situations."

McGraw went on to stress that he felt the mature thing to do was to put his boozing days behind him.

"I felt like it was time to grow up a little bit for me. Things weren't going the way I wanted them to," he said.